Are people born with phobias?

Question

or do we develop them?

Answer 1

We develop phobias through negative experiences with the object of our fear or by witnessing a caregiver showing fear towards an object. This is how some phobias can run in families. Humans may be conditioned to fear almost anything. Early studies such as Watson & Raynor's "Little Albert" study (1920) proved this. However, humans do fear certain stimuli more readily (Ohman and Mineka 2002, 2003) such as snakes and heights. This suggests that our mammalian brain has evolved to react with fear to objects that threatened our ancestors. Thus we can conclude that although specific phobias are developed, we are all genetically programmed to fear threatening objects as a survival instinct.

Answer 2

We actually are in some instances born with phobias for whatever reason. Some believe in past lives, and others may think that it could be memories passed down through our genes. Whatever reason the truth may be, I can not tell you and neither can anyone else. I'm also sure you can find studies that tell you both that we are born with phobias and that we are not born with phobias. Of course most phobias are learned and develop from experiences.

Answer 3

We are born fearless and without phobias. phobias are a form of conditioning caused by your own or someone else's fear. For example - if your mom had a fear of water / drowning - you will probably develop a unhealthy attitude to water and have a higher chance of developing a phobia to water. The other cause of phobia that starts in childhood is caused by events - e.g: a child left behind after a family outing (old enough to understand that they have been forgotten) can develop a phobia of being left alone. See below - interesting link

Answer 4

Some people are actually born with phobias - they just don't register until they are older. Other people develop them as they grow older. A bad experience with spiders might lead off to that person screaming at the sight of one.

Speaking of phobias, there is a registered (meaning that this is NOT a joke) phobia meaning being afraid- of- peanut- butter-sticking -in -your -mouth. I have completely forgotten the full name.

Answer 5

Brilliant question. I think its a bit of each. We are born with phobias which go back as far as our cave dwelling days and beyond but we do develop some from childhood happenings

Answer 6

Yes we are born with phobias, they develop through each person development in the womb and in the mind, nurture also develiops phobias, we get phobias froma bad experience usually.

Answer 7

You develop them. Either from bad experience or from a learned response from other people who have phobias.

Answer 8

No we are not. They are caused by things that have happened in our lifetime that we would rather not experience again i.e:
A child slips into a swimming pool and nearly drowns.
As the child grows older it will think of a way to stop that from happening again, instead of thinking of something practical like walking slowly when near swimming pools they think of a way it could DEFINITELY not happen again like never going near water even if it is a puddle.
So the answer to that question is no.
Hope i could help!

Answer 9

i say develop them.
i wasn't born with a phobia of wires,
just took an older brother & a computer-geek, 2 instill a fear of tangled wires!

Answer 10

I hated suckling and hated feeding my kids with the breast as well, i was born like that i think one think i know for sure is i was scared of clowns since i was a baby, why, i dont know:)))